One Compliment a Day
by bequirk
Summary: Jane goes to New York to work for Tony Stark, so of course Darcy goes with her. And in New York, Darcy meets a guy. Who can fly, but doesn't have Tony Stark's ego or Thor's godliness for her to have to deal with. So she's pretty happy with James Rhodes.


**My first fic published under my new penname! Exciting business, this.**

**Many thanks to my fantabulous beta, dysprositos, for loads of assistance and encouragement.**

**Uh, Thor 2 spoilers, if anyone hasn't seen it. And this is pretty much a crack fic, so. Absurdity abounds.**

* * *

The elevator is climbing up and up and up in Stark Tower, and it does not surprise Darcy one bit when her best friend starts making out with her godly boyfriend.

Put Jane and Thor in the same room together without anything to do, and they get drawn in together, like they're magnetized. Well, like their _lips_ are magnetized.

Sounds like a scientific phenomenon. Darcy should ask Jane about that. When she's not sucking face with Thor, that is.

Anyway.

The elevator finally stops, and although it dings loudly as the doors slide open, the heavy metal music coming out of the speakers stopping, Jane and Thor don't even look up. Or rather, Thor doesn't look up. Jane's so tiny that she's on her very tiptoes and Thor's stooped over. That can't be comfortable.

But Darcy's got a shiny penthouse to explore, so she leaves them to it. They'll get out of the elevator eventually. She's pretty sure.

* * *

So they'd been in Greenwich, right. She and Jane had been sharing a tiny little one bedroom 'flat,' and using Jane's mom's house as a lab.

But then Darcy became responsible for Erik, and there was nowhere else to put him. So he was crashing on their couch.

And then Thor came back, and once he and Jane quit making out outside, he moved in, too.

Darcy had gone to sleep in Jane's mom's extra room without complaining; Darcy had been there for the two years of Jane's alternate moping and frantic science-ing (shut up, that's so totally a word), so she didn't really mind. She got a bed to herself at Jane's mom's, which was totally great.

But she spent her days with Jane. Someone needed to keep an eye on Erik, after all. He had gone back to the doctor a few days before; something about Loki being dead seemed to give him closure, and he was apparently voluntarily talking to the therapist at SHIELD's London base now.

Although why _they_ hadn't bothered to spring him after the thing at Stonehenge, and Darcy, his 'daughter,' had needed to, she doesn't know.

But anyway. She'd been at Jane-Thor-and-Erik's place, it was lunchtime, and Jane's phone rang. Jane was helping Thor make grilled cheese sandwiches. Which mostly entailed making goo-goo eyes at him while he cooked.

So Jane called, "Darcy, I asked you to please change that annoying ringtone. Can you get the phone; I'm busy?"

"Sure, boss."

But Darcy hadn't set this ringtone; it was some heavy metal thing. "Iron Man," once she listened for a minute.

The display said the number was blocked, but Darcy had a pretty good idea of who was calling given the ringtone. And the hacking that would have been needed to install the ringtone.

She still used her nice phone manners when she answered the phone, though. The last time she'd answered Jane's phone with a rude "What?" it had been SHIELD had been calling to let Jane know that her equipment would be back the next day. And that they were sorry (yeah, right).

But Darcy's iPod had not been in that delivery; Erik's laptop and every single nut and bolt of Jane's crap had been, but not Darcy's iPod.

So she'd learned her lesson about being rude on the phone.

"Jane Foster's phone, Darcy speaking."

"You're the intern, right? Nevermind, put Foster on."

"May I ask who's calling?" Darcy asked sweetly. She was like 99.9% sure she was right about the identity of the caller, but if this was just some whack job, there was no need to bother Jane. And yeah, a whacko could lie about his identity, but still. She was trying to be a good friend here.

"The ringtone didn't give it away? I'm Tony Stark, sweetheart. Now lemme talk to Foster."

"Can I get a please?"

He huffed, annoyed, but obliged. "Please?"

Darcy slapped her hand loosely over the bottom of the phone and yelled, "Jane, Tony Stark's on the phone for you! Should I tell him to fuck off?"

Jane practically flew into the room, "No, Darcy, give me that!"

She snatched the phone and Darcy sighed, pushing her glasses up her nose and going into the kitchen to check on lunch.

The smell of food had attracted Erik, so Darcy talked to him some while she waited for Thor to finish up cooking.

Jane came in a few minutes later, smiling. "Thor, uh, Tony says hi. And he wants me to come work for him. In New York, apparently they're still rebuilding his house in California. SHIELD's made me an offer, of course, but I still don't like them. Stupid government bureaucracy."

"Well, what'd you say?" Darcy asked.

"I wanted to check with you guys first," Jane said. "Erik, what do you think?"

"I'm actually not supposed to leave the country for a little while. And uh, going back to New York, those aren't exactly the best memories."

"Will you be okay here by yourself?"

"I'll be fine, Jane," Erik smiled, one of the first they'd seen from him in a while. "I am actually older than you are, you know."

"Sure you are. I just wanted to make sure. You're my family, you know that."

"Okay, enough of this mushiness," Darcy interrupted, "I vote 'hell yeah' to going to New York. I wanna be able to drive on the right side of the road again."

Jane rolled her eyes, but turned to Thor. "Tony Stark is an...odd man," he said, "But I believe he would be a fair employer. I would not mind seeing him again, either. But you must make the choice, love. It is your career."

"Are you kidding me? Of course I want to go, he's an engineering genius. And I've been having massive problems with that spectroscope, and he says he thinks he can fix it."

"Sounds like it's settled, then, call him back and I'll book our tickets," Darcy interjected. "First class, of course, so maybe ask him for an advance while you're at it?"

"First class, really, Darcy?"

"Yes, Jane. Have you seen how huge your boyfriend is? No way he's fitting in one of those tiny economy seats. Maybe four of them, but by then it'd just be cheaper to get first class and be done with it. And you have to ride with him, duh, and there's no way I'm riding in the back of the plane by myself. So first class it is. And we'll have to work something out for Mew-Mew, I doubt they'll let it on a plane..."

"Okay, Darcy, you're making the plans. I'll call Tony."

And then two days later, all Jane's stuff packed up and shipped over separately, the three of them were in the airport with their bags. Thor had popped back to Asgard and dropped Mew-Mew off with his all-seeing buddy, and he was going to pick it up after they were settled in, apparently.

* * *

She's maybe taken five steps out of the elevator when she almost bumps into a guy in armor. He's taller than she is (but isn't practically everyone?), so it's not until she takes a step back to see his face that she realizes that it isn't Tony Stark.

As usual, Darcy's mouth gets away from her. "Whoa, hey, hot guy in the Iron Man armor who isn't Iron Man."

"Uh, thanks. I'm James Rhodes—"

"It's _Rhodey!_" comes a bellow from the other room. Tony Stark's voice.

Continuing on like he wasn't ever interrupted, he says, "And this isn't the Iron Man armor, it's Iron Patriot—"

Again, there's a bellow, "_War Machine!_"

He rolls his eyes, and finishes his sentence. "You must be Dr. Foster's intern."

"Yeah, Darcy Lewis. Uh, what should I call you?"

"James works. Or you could just skip to Rhodey. You hang around Tony long enough, you're gonna pick that up, anyway. It's what happened to Pepper. I was James for...four months, I think, and then Rhodey started slipping out."

Of course he'd know Ms. Potts, Darcy realizes, but it's still cool to hear that he knows her. She's awesome; Darcy had watched the security camera footage of her taking out that asshat blond Mandarin dude like a million times.

And she wears some killer heels. Just not when she's taking out the bad guys.

But that's beside the point. Darcy puts out her hand, smiles, "Nice to meet you, James."

He cocks an eyebrow as he takes her hand, and she explains, "With any luck, I won't be hanging around your bestie a ton. He seems pretty annoying."

"I can _hear _you," Tony yells from the next room, and Darcy laughs.

"Oh, it'll be good to have you around. I was just heading out, but I'm in town for the weekend, so I'll see you around. Your boss too. And Thor. I met him when that asshole," he points over his shoulder towards the room where Tony is, "invited everyone out for shawarma but me."

"All right, good to meet you, Iron Dude. Later!"

Jane and Thor _still_ haven't appeared, and Darcy needs to go make sure that they aren't going at it in the elevator because James doesn't need to see that when he tries to go downstairs.

They aren't, fortunately, when Darcy goes back around the corner to check on them.

She taps Thor's shoulder politely and waits for him to stand back up to his full height (how is his back not killing him by now?) before she says, "Uh, guys, we're here. And someone else needs to use the elevator." But when she turns around, James is gone.

Probably flew away, she realizes. He _was _wearing a suit.

Jane and Thor don't seem to notice her talking about a person who isn't there, and they just calmly get off the elevator, holding hands.

"Okay, Jane, Stark's in there," Darcy points, "And Thor, I wanna go up on the roof but I don't want to fall off, so you're coming with me."

"Darcy, you do realize I cannot fly without Mjolnir, correct?"

Darcy pouts as Jane hands Thor the handle to her suitcase and leaves the room, practically running to where Darcy said Tony was. Nothing gets in the way of _science_.

Thor and Darcy wind up watching TV while the science people work, and later when James comes back, she tells him that he's going up on the roof with her.

"Why not Thor? Or Tony?"

"I don't wanna fall off the roof. Thor is sans hammer at the moment, so he can't catch me if I do fall. And I don't trust Tony; he'd probably let me fall because he's an asshole. So you're it."

"Wow, quite the recommendation."

"I already called you hot, one compliment a day's my limit."

"That's right, you did." He grins.

The view of New York is pretty cool from the roof, and Darcy appreciates James taking her silly fear seriously and keeping close.

Enough that she looks up at him and asks, "You're here for the whole weekend, right? You wanna grab lunch tomorrow?"

He seems kind of shocked, so she adds, "What? You're hot, I'm not so bad myself, and you're a nice guy. It's just lunch, I promise to be a perfect gentleman."

"I think that's my line," he laughs.

She just waits, arms crossed over her chest and doing her best eyebrow raise.

"Sure, why not. You like sandwiches? There's a great deli a few blocks away I try to visit every time I'm in town."

"Sounds like a date," Darcy almost has to groan at her own lameness, but he just smiles.

"You had your fill of the view? Pepper should be here by now and she's supposed to be bringing home Thai."

"Ooooh, Thai. Yeah, I'm good. Thanks."

He jokingly offers her his arm as they go back inside, and she takes it quite happily. And flashes a smile at Jane when she makes the 'what did you do _this_ time Darcy' face.

Darcy will explain later, but for now she's got to go meet Pepper Potts. Who is a goddess bearing coconut curry.

* * *

Going out for lunch works out well, as it turns out. And so does going out for Indian.

And then so does ordering in pizza and watching a movie in Darcy's suite of rooms (because Tony Fucking Stark apparently does not have guest rooms, he has guest _suites_).

What can she say; she's always wanted to date a guy who can fly.

* * *

**A review would be nice, yes?**


End file.
